Chapter 930

Hearing Stiano take the initiative to offer help, Lu Mian's thoughts turned rapidly, and he revealed a smile:

"Thank you so much!"

Stiano took off his backpack, took out one repair tool after another from it like a magic trick, and opened the hood of the gray sedan.

Seeing this, Franca couldn't help but howl in her heart:

"Don't!

"Originally I only had to pay one or two thousand, after you repair it, I'm afraid I'll have to pay several thousand!"

She could guess why Lu Mian was willing to let Stiano help, because the information provided by the Major Arcana cards didn't have the projection of this Steam Church high-level figure in the dream city. He didn't look very important and had nothing to do with Mr. Fool's awakening, yet he had encountered the team twice by chance. This showed that either there was an arrangement of fate, or he himself hid something special. Observing him more at the current stage might yield beneficial guidance at some critical moment in the future.

For "Witches," this was both a conclusion of logical reasoning and a hint of spiritual intuition.

"Forget it, forget it, this is just a dream, not reality. As long as Mr. Fool believes that the high-level figures of the 'God of Steam and Machinery' Church are good at repairing machinery, then Stiano can repair the car..." Franca comforted herself, quietly creating ice cubes to disperse the high temperature invading the car.

After a while, Stiano raised his face, which had some light yellow stubble, avoided his palms that were stained with oil, used the back of his hand to push the non-prescription glasses on the bridge of his nose, and said to Franca in the car and Lu Mian outside the car:

"Fixed."

Really? Don't lie to me... Franca tried it and found that the vehicle could really be restarted, very smoothly.

Lu Mian took out a bottle of mineral water filled with "Hunter Witch" brand boiled water, and by the sewer opening on the side of the road, provided a water flow for Stiano to wash his palms and tools.

After the other party wiped his palms clean and put away the tools, Lu Mian expressed his gratitude again, took out his phone, unlocked the screen, and said with a smile:

"Let's add WeChat. If you need any help later, you can find us. Hehe, as long as it's within our ability."

Stiano looked at Lu Mian seriously for a few seconds, revealed a smile, and said:

"Okay."

He immediately took out his phone and let Lu Mian add him as a WeChat friend by scanning the QR code.

After Lu Mian finished scanning, he found that the other party's nickname was "Electric Energy and Information Technology."

A strange feeling... Lu Mian waved goodbye to Stiano, returned to the gray sedan, and showed this Mr.'s WeChat to Jianna and the others.

Franca glanced at it and said amusedly:

"This nickname is set up like a university course.

"Flip through his Moments!"

This was the first non-team member friend Lu Mian added on WeChat, and he had completely forgotten what Franca mentioned about being able to look at Moments to collect information.

He quickly tapped on Stiano's avatar, then turned into Moments:

"Today: The professor's understanding of the concept of information is biased. Information is also energy, and energy also contains information. One of the essences of every existence is an aggregate of corresponding information."

"Yesterday: Discovered an old car. The beauty of machinery makes me intoxicated."

"August 13: I manufactured a wonderful machine."

"—Friends only display Moments from the last three days—"

"A wonderful machine?" Lu Mian muttered suspiciously, "How wonderful can it be? As a local of the dream city, no matter how wonderful the machine created is, it shouldn't be able to exceed the limitations of the dream itself."

"It really looks like a high-level figure of the Steam Church, and also shows the state of working hard to learn and think after coming into contact with more advanced civilization. This should be the underlying logic when Mr. Fool's subconscious wove this image." Franca said casually while driving the vehicle back to the road.

In the time that followed, they observed key targets like Peng Deng's girlfriend Nie Zhen, Peng Deng's roommate Grisha, and Zhou Mingrui's roommate Mobet.

Before getting off work, they returned to the building where Peng Deng worked and waited patiently for the other party to end a day of busyness.

Peng Deng appeared after six o'clock in the evening and chose to take the subway back to the Heyun residential area where he rented.

Franca drove with Jianna and Ludwig to guard the destination in advance, while Lu Mian and Anthony followed into the subway station.

Along the way, many women cast their gazes toward Lu Mian, seemingly attracted by his handsomeness, while Lu Mian had painted himself uglier before going out.

Of course, a small number of men were also peeking.

And Peng Deng was focused on his phone, not caring at all whether beauties appeared around him, let alone that it was just a charming person of the same sex.

"A normal degree of handsomeness isn't enough to be picked up or attract more people's attention. Unless there's an added gimmick, it won't become a hot search or headline..." Lu Mian felt a bit relieved.

Anthony beside him was naturally ignored by the people around.

Thanks to the "Hunter's" tracking skills and the "Witch's" ability to hide in the shadows at any time, Lu Mian easily followed Peng Deng to the vicinity of the Heyun residential area.

The latter didn't go home immediately, but turned toward Ankang North Road, walked to the vicinity of Xindu Garden, and entered a restaurant named "Yuzhou Stir-fry."

Lu Mian looked left and right and found that Franca rolled down the car window and waved at the two of them.

After they got into the car, Franca asked with concern:

"Any gains?"

Lu Mian first shook his head, then muttered suspiciously:

"I want to know what's on his phone more now, how he can manage to keep looking and looking."

He was looking when taking the subway, looking when sitting on the escalator, and looking when walking.

"You don't understand." Franca let out a sigh.

Jianna looked at the "Yuzhou Stir-fry" restaurant and recalled:

"This is a restaurant Mr. Fool and Peng Deng often eat at. Wait a while longer, maybe Mr. Fool will come too.

"Do we want to observe their interaction?"

Lu Mian looked at the sky outside:

"We can."

The summer in this dream city doesn't get dark until after eight o'clock in the evening.

Jianna said "Mm":

"Then I'll buy Ludwig a roast duck, so he doesn't keep shouting that he's hungry."

She had already found dinner for Ludwig on the same side of the vehicle. The "Fruitwood Roast Duck" shop had a piece of paper posted with the words "Thirty yuan each."

Lu Mian looked at Ludwig, who had suspicious liquid flowing down the corner of his mouth, and said with a smile:

"Two, let's taste it too."

Time passed second by second. Lu Mian and the others tasted the roast duck and ate steamed buns, but still didn't wait for Zhou Mingrui, the dream incarnation of Mr. Fool, while Peng Deng had finished his meal and was returning toward the Heyun residential area.

"Mr. Fool wants to change his taste tonight?" Franca dipped the last piece of dough wrapper wrapped with duck meat into sweet noodle sauce and handed it to her lips.

*Gulp! *

She heard a clear swallowing sound.

Glancing at Ludwig, who was full of desire, Franca sighed and handed the food in her hand over.

Lu Mian withdrew his gaze from outside the window:

"It could also be that he went to do something else. I didn't see him return to Xindu Garden."

"Continue tracking?" Jianna pointed at Peng Deng's back.

Lu Mian shook his head:

"It's dark. If we follow further, it's very likely an accident will happen."

Franca said in an agreeing tone:

"The Major Arcana cards also mentioned that one of the most likely expressions of Peng Deng's problem is that he has never met Mr. Fool, that is, Zhou Mingrui, after dark.

"They are childhood friends. It's very normal to eat a late-night snack or watch a movie together. Mr. Fool has issued invitations many times, and Peng Deng himself has also invited Mr. Fool, but they never managed to gather. And every time, Peng Deng had something to do—either his girlfriend didn't allow it, or his girlfriend suddenly got sick, or the guy he was sharing a rental with broke the lock, and they had to wait for the locksmith to open the door...

"And when they chose to dine and play during the day, they all succeeded. The girlfriend who always obstructed Peng Deng would occasionally participate too."

"Combined with the 'Beware of the night' hint from the magic mirror, these details seem very eerie." Lu Mian said "Mm."

Back inside the rented apartment.

Franca saw Lu Mian looking at the increasingly dark sky outside and falling into deep thought, and asked curiously:

"What are you thinking about?"

"I want to go out tonight, act like an ordinary person, and see if I will encounter abnormalities and problems again." Lu Mian deliberated and said.

He wanted to probe the boundaries of the "night problem" slightly before officially contacting Zhou Mingrui tomorrow afternoon.

—Last night they didn't go out, and everything was normal.

"Like an ordinary person..." Franca's eyes turned, and she said to Lu Mian and Jianna with a smile, "Let's go watch a movie!"

Lu Mian and the others already knew the concept of a movie and were curious about it, so Franca's proposal was passed unanimously.

Franca then smiled like a fox that had stolen a small hen:

"We'll go to a different mall, and we can scratch some more lottery tickets. Won't the movie ticket money and popcorn money for tonight be covered?"

Can't go to the same one, that will attract attention!

Hearing the word "popcorn," Ludwig, who was originally uninterested, had his eyes light up instantly.

…………

Inside another mall.

Franca, who scratched another two thousand in prize money, led her teammates with satisfaction toward the cinema located on the fourth floor.

Passing by the third floor, they saw a long queue at the entrance of a bookstore with a very petty-bourgeois sentiment.

"Signing event?" Franca, who had come to the dream city, was curious about everything and interested in everything, pulling Jianna to go over and see which writer it was.

"Romance Queen... Salted Fish Without Dreams... Original Author of the Great Pirate Series Novels..." Franca read out the keywords on the roll-up banner.

"This pen name is so strange." Jianna expressed her feelings.

Franca laughed:

"This can only be considered ordinarily strange. I'll download an app for you later and let you see. The pen names of those web novel authors are one stranger than the other!"

While speaking, Franca tried hard to stand on tiptoe, looking at the writer who was signing, while Lu Mian walked to her side and also cast his gaze into the bookstore.

A few seconds later, as that writer raised her head, Lu Mian and Franca's expressions froze at the same time.

"What's wrong?" Jianna noticed their abnormality.

Franca answered with a strange expression:

"I shouldn't have seen wrong...

"How could she be the Romance Queen..."

"Who?" Jianna asked suspiciously.

"Ms. 'Magician'." The one answering Jianna's question was Lu Mian, who was pressing his voice.

(End of chapter)